Try Again
by broadwaypants
Summary: This time, Blaine thinks he's golden when he tries to serenade someone in public.  He just didn't count on someone else using his crush on Jesse St. James to their advantage.


People always say that you'll never make the same mistake twice. That you'll learn the first time something goes wrong and it will prevent you from blundering again. There's a part of your brain that's supposed to kick in when you're about to do the same thing twice, reminding you of what happened the first time, asking you if you really do want to risk that again.

Of course, in Blaine's case, he'd thought that everything would have turned out okay. He had learned from his past mistakes, after all.

Mistake number one: serenading someone in public.

Mistake number two: serenading someone closeted.

Mistake number three: serenading someone with a wildly inappropriate song.

So when Blaine felt the familiar urge to confess his feelings to another boy, he did his research this time. He didn't just blunder in after getting coffee with someone twice. No, he made sure that he knew everything there was to know about the boy in question.

Easy enough when that boy was Jesse St. James.

His story was one that was still a hot topic, even though it had been almost two years since anything controversial had happened to the boy. Apparently he had been put on academic probation at the end of the previous year, his scholarship pulled and given an ultimatum: get better grades, or you're out. Blaine thought it was unfair of everyone to keep talking about the mistakes Jesse had made, especially seeing how he'd done his best to turn his life around and had scored the lead roles in both of the school's musicals that year. He had made a name for himself, a positive name, and his little blip should have been just that: a blip.

So he knew that much about Jesse. He also remembered Jesse from back in Ohio, remembered the boy's fondness for impromptu concerts, and knew that even if Jesse didn't return his feelings, he would appreciate the gesture. So serenading Jesse in public? Not a mistake this time.

It was also easy enough to find out if Jesse even could return those feelings. Jesse wasn't exactly virgin white, and hadn't been even back in Ohio. And finding out if those stains on the white were rainbow-colored was easy enough. Answer affirmative, Blaine had one less thing to worry about.

Picking a song, however? That was the tricky part. He didn't want to make a giant spectacle like he had done back in high school, singing a song that was inarguably about sex. No, that just wouldn't do. He wanted to date Jesse, not sleep with him. Well, he wouldn't say no to sleeping with him, but that was besides the point. He wanted to woo Jesse St. James, and one does not woo Jesse St. James with a song about sex.

And then of course there was the problem that was _when_ exactly to do all of this. It would be easy to just knock on Jesse's door and sing to him when it opened, but that was no fun. He could ambush Jesse before or after his rehearsals for the musical, but that was no good either. People were always in a hurry going to and from rehearsal. That left him with the option of turning up at one of Jesse's classrooms and singing to him then.

Lucky him, then, that an entire group of his friends swore that Dr. Miller was the "most chill dude ever, and we're like, totally tight and we'll talk to him for you."

He should have known something was up when an entire group of his friends were waiting outside the classroom on the day he decided to sing to Jesse. Not only that, but two had cameras and all were smirking. But Blaine decided that that was no big deal. They were all just excited and proud of him, right?

So putting all his fears to the back of his head, he burst into the room. He'd talked another one of his friends into playing the guitar for him, so this friend followed him, backing him up as he began singing.

"_Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself_," he began, frantically searching the classroom until his eyes found Jesse. The boy was sitting in the middle row, his desk pushed up against the wall and turned in his chair so that he was leaning against it. But when Blaine looked at him, and then kept looking at him, Jesse's posture straightened, boredom leaving his eyes in about two seconds as he watched Blaine sing. He weaved his way through the desks, eyes never leaving Jesse for a second, almost walking into someone at one point. A grin - yes, a grin, not a smirk - was tugging at the corners of Jesse's mouth as he kept going; this was already going much better than the first time he'd tried this.

Blaine took his eyes off Jesse for a split second, spotting an empty chair at the front of the classroom and making a beeline for it, jumping up on top of it as he kept singing. But that just shoved him right back into high school, reminding him of how he'd jumped onto the backs of sofas, how he'd sung on top of a clothes display, and the sight of the professor's desk was just too enticing. Blaine made another jump, unsettling a pile of papers by accident and sending them flying.

But a true performer keeps going, and Jesse had laughed when that happened, so clearly it was okay. Blaine locked eyes with him again, jumping down off the teacher's desk when he started nearing the end of the song, walking over to Jesse's desk and sitting down on top of his desk when he finished singing.

Breath coming a bit short and cheeks flushed from the excitement, Blaine smiled down at Jesse. The other reached up, giving Blaine a pat on the cheek, and he wondered for about two seconds if he was about to get a kiss, but then Jesse's hand moved and had seized his wrist and was dragging him out of the classroom. Blaine's friend had already retreated, the others who had been waiting outside practically running down the hallway. Confusion flashed across Blaine's face, and when he noticed Jesse looking over his shoulder and shooting his professor an apologetic look, his heart sank and his stomach turned over.

The door had barely closed before Blaine was apologizing.

"Jesse I'm so sorry I had no idea that that wasn't okay I'm so sorry this is so embarrassing this is the second time I've done this why did I do that I'm sorry I'm really really sorry." It all came out in one breath, like one sentence. But then Jesse was chuckling, and his eyes looked kind enough and there wasn't even a hint of a smirk on his face, so that was good, right?

"It was cute," Jesse told him, letting go of his wrist and leaning against the wall. "And I have to applaud your song selection. Did you really mean the lyrics, or were they just convenient?"

"I-I meant them," Blaine nodded, biting his lip and looking pointedly at Jesse's lips, at the smile that was still on his face. Jesse really did have a very nice smile, made even more special by the fact that it was so rare to see him do so without a look in his eyes that made it clear that it was not a smile but a smirk.

"I'm touched," Jesse nodded his head once. "But Blaine, you really can't serenade people in the middle of class. You know that, right? I mean, it was lovely and I'd by lying if I said I didn't like being serenaded, but I don't think my professor was very happy with how you sent copies of the exam we're not meant to take for another week flying into the classroom."

Blaine's face drained of color.

"Oh," he looked down at the floor. It all made sense now. His friends hadn't talked to the professor for him at all. They had probably hoped that he would have been enough of a distraction so that someone could sneak a copy of the exam, and he had given them exactly what they'd wanted.

"But hey," Jesse started speaking again, the sound of his voice and the clear optimism in it making Blaine look up, noticing that he was still smiling, "I still got serenaded by a cute boy. I'd say that's a definite plus." He pushed himself off the wall and took a step, right into Blaine's personal space. "So are you going to ask me out or not?"

His face had to be tinged pink again. He could feel it. But there was also a smile tugging at his own lips now.

"I was planning on it, yeah," he admitted, biting his lip momentarily before continuing. "And I would be extremely grateful if you said yes, especially seeing how I probably got you in trouble and this would only be a fun story to tell if I got the guy in the end."

"Then go ahead and tell everyone you got the guy," Jesse reached out to take one of Blaine's hands, linking their fingers and starting to walk up the hallway, away from the classroom.

"But," Blaine looked around behind him at the closed classroom door, then back at Jesse, "you still have class."

"And?" Jesse shrugged. "I can think of at least fifteen things I'd rather be doing, now that I have a boyfriend. Except fourteen of them aren't exactly first date material." He looked over at Blaine, chuckling and asking, "So how would you feel about our first date being lunch and then counting dinner as the second one?"

"I feel like I'm suddenly getting a lot more than I bargained for," Blaine decided, letting go of Jesse's hand only to wrap his arm around the other's waist. "But in the best way possible."


End file.
